Olympians in service: Citybus

Leyland/Volvo Olympians have taken a very large proportion in the Citybus fleet. During 1993 to 1998, Citybus had purchased more than 500 Leyland/Volvo Olympians. 40 of them (485-504 and 585-620) were bodied by Plaxton and others were bodied by Alexander. These buses have made a great deal of importance in the fleet since Citybus began to operate franchised bus routes on 1st September, 1993.

After the overhaul in 1998 Citybus decided to renew some of the 12m Olympians which were registered in 1993-4. New seats of 2+2 configuration were installed onto the buses and the floor turned from blue to grey. They were retro-fitted with new electronic route displays. Continuous lighting systems were also installed on some of these buses. The new CMB livery was applied on these buses, where less parts were filled with red. Buses with fleet number from 341 to 426 and were renewed. But others (427 to 484) remain unrenewed till now.

In 2001 Citybus carried out another Olympian refurbishment project. Many of the 10.3 3-axle Olympians were included in this project. New whole-set of electronic displays were installed. The buses were also reconfigured with 2+2 seats, blue handles, new floors and continuous lighting systems. At the same time all Olympians were replaced with an enlarged grille for better radiation.

As the Hong Kong Government has a policy to limit the number of buses each franchised bus company owns, Citybus cannot purchase new buses for now. Thus there is not a Super Olympian existing in the fleet. Citybus sold two Volvo B6 low floor single-deckers with Jit Luen bodies to CMB non-franchised bus department in 2001 and received two ex-CMB Volvo Olympians, VA62 and 64 in return. They received their fleet numbers 1041 and 1042 respectively.

The following pages includes information and photo images about Olympians in the Citybus fleet. Please click the links below.